Here’s to taking the next 10 months off

My life as a Rocketeer has ended and my life as an active, traveling hacker has begun.

For the last two years and eight months I've been working for
Hashrocket
as a Ruby on Rails consultant. I'm honored to have worked with the most intelligent, funny, compassionate, and generous people I've ever known. We created a family at Hashrocket which made leaving fairly difficult but after almost 3 years my passion has started to wane and without passion, my job would have just become work.

I resigned on November 5th to pursue a more active lifestyle and to hack on whatever excites me. I'll still be contributing to my open source projects including Specjour, Ephemeral Response and HTTParty.

Saw a few places

I've been to a handful of places over the past few years. Most were Hashrocket related. Let me recount some experiences for each.

Orlando, FL

Portland, OR

Sunnyvale, CA

Lima, Peru

Norcross/Duluth, GA

Southern/Western Europe

Nashville, TN

Keystone, CO

Baltimore, MD

New Orleans, LA

2008

In February, on my second day on the job, the then-infant Hashrocket crew made its way down to Orlando for Acts as Conference. What an excellent way to start my new job. A few months later in May, Hashrocket sponsored a trip to Portland, OR for Railsconf. I'd say at least 12 of us went, stomping about in our "Moon Man" or "Ghetto Blaster" T-shirts. In September, I hacked on an ActiveRecord adapter for YQL at the Yahoo Hack Day in Sunnyvale, CA with my old friend Jon Bardin. That November, my dad and I buried my grandfather, Oscar Turriate, next to his first wife, Gliceria Loayza, in Lima, Peru. He was an excellent man. Strong, consistent, and quiet; worthy of all the respect and love he'd gained in life.

2009

In February I drove @l4rk down to Acts of Conference in Orlando, FL while going over his talk en route. In April, a handful of us did on-site pair programming with with the Primedia team in Norcross, GA. In May, @l4rk, @cgrusden and I returned to Orlando to help @cory_foy troubleshoot Rails installations on Windows during the Day of Ruby. Later in May I cruised around Southern and Western Europe with my folks. In August, @l4rk and I picked up Snow Leopard discs in the middle of the Ruby Hoedown in Nashville, TN. I finished the year off snowboarding through the Christmas holiday in Keystone, CO.

2010

In June, some alcohol-craving Rubyconf attendees and I shared moonshine with
@techpickles
late one night in Baltimore, MD. That August, my dad and I took our bi-annual trip to Peru to hang out with the family and see la
Cordillera Blanca. This mountain range rekindled my extreme desire to learn how to rock climb and to live a simpler life among the hills. Then in late September I ate my first Korean BBQ dinner in Duluth, GA with
@leshill and @bestplayer. It took a few years but in November, I finally made it to my first RubyConf in New Orleans, LA. I consecutively drank and smoked more than ever before at that conference. By the end of the week, walking into my first session at noon with a drink in my hand seemed absolutely normal. I also ran my first 10K through rubyconf5k and watched
@voxdolo and @rbxbx get some stylish
tattoos.

Looking ahead

I'll be leaving for Ecuador tomorrow on December 1st. I'm going down there for a month-long surf trip. Towards the end of my last trip to Peru I got an itch to explore the Northern beaches but we ran out of time. Of course, Peru's North is Ecuador's South, so I'll try to scratch my itch in Ecuador. Also, Ecuador is on the equator which makes it ideal for "skinning it" in December. I don't have any accommodations planned but the goal is to see most of the coast. I'll just keep moving north and south until I find a place that feels right.

I return to Jacksonville in January, staying with my parents for two weeks. Then I'm off to Breckenridge, CO for a month of snowboarding, and possibly some indoor swimming/rock climbing.

I'll be back in Jacksonville in late February with plans to move to Boulder, CO by April. I'll use my time in Boulder to learn how to rock climb and to train for my first triathlon. I'm not sure how it happened but all of a sudden, I'm interested in exercise and the challenge of a triathlon seems like a good fit for me. If I can make it to August, then that'll be ten months without a proper job. We'll see.